A “shift” in school leadership is needed to prioritise the needs of pupils with SEND, a government adviser involved in the creation of the new proposals to reform the system has said.
David Thomas, a policy adviser to education secretary Nadhim Zahawi, told a Tes Education Insights expert panel discussion on special educational needs and disability (SEND) that everyone acknowledges the school system has a problem with inclusion.
He was responding to concerns from multi-academy trust (MAT) chief executive Seamus Murphy, who said some schools look to “quickly pass [SEND] children along the chain” by referring them elsewhere rather than taking responsibility for them.
Mr Thomas, who was involved in producing the government’s SEND Green Paper, said changing this was central to ensuring that “SEND policy did not end up being in a box on its own”.
He said: “If we take the problem that you’re pointing out, that I think everyone would say exists, of inclusion not being important enough for every school for every leadership team, how do we shift that?”
Mr Thomas suggested that, as the school system evolved towards all schools being in MATs, it should be “one that praises looking after every child in a local area…and that responsibility sits with you and that responsibility is yours”.
He added: “That is something that we have to think about very, very carefully so that SEND policy doesn’t end up being in a box on its own but is actually a really core part of what we are doing with the school system.”
Mr Murphy, chief executive of Turner Schools, in Kent, also highlighted the issue of inclusion during the panel discussion.
He said: “I welcome the sentiment behind the Green Paper, which is, ‘these children are here and we have a duty to make sure that they’re educated’.
“What we shouldn’t be doing in schools - and there are some schools that don’t do this, but many do - they look to quickly pass them along the chain to make referrals to elsewhere, so they become a problem for someone else. And they don’t own that sense of ‘these are pupils in our community’.”
Mr Murphy said some trusts and schools set out to be inclusive and do this work “brilliantly well”.
However, he added: “Too often, in our experience here at Turner, we have children arriving from other settings who have been told their needs can’t be met. And, because we are good at it, our SEND profile in both of our secondaries increased by 10 per cent over the past two years.
“I don’t believe that is a birthrate issue; I believe that this is because we put children at the heart of everything we do.”
DfE looking at drop in teacher confidence
The discussion also touched on the training of teachers to support children with SEND and the government’s plan to develop a new national professional qualification (NPQ) for school Sendcos (special educational needs and disability coordinators).
Mr Thomas revealed that the Department for Education has been looking into the reason why surveys have shown that teacher confidence in educating children with SEND has been falling year on year. He asked the panellists why they thought this was happening.
Susan Douglas, chief executive of Eden Academy Trust, which runs a group of special schools, said there was a training issue to address to ensure “that everybody understands and is able to support children with SEND within mainstream settings”.
She said: “I am supportive of the NPQ for Sendcos but I am not sure that is actually the most important training element that is needed.
“You have got a huge number of brilliant Sendcos across the country, doing their job brilliantly.
“Actually, we need every teacher to teach children with special educational needs well and, therefore, how are we going to ensure that happens?”
She said collaboration and utilising special schools to support mainstream schools was key to this.
Clive Lawrence, director of SEND at Greenwood Academies Trust, said that the focus on a new Sendco qualification in the Green Paper could be counter-productive.
He suggested there also needed to be a focus on providing continuing professional development around SEND for senior leaders in the school system. “What I am mindful of here is that, very quickly, what that does is just puts the responsibility on Sendcos”.
Mr Lawrence said every leader in a school should be a “leader of SEND”.
He added: “One of the key things is that headteachers, principals, CEOs, deputies - they are responsible for setting the culture, the expectations, the curriculum, the ambition, the development, the school improvement.
“There is a gap, in terms of to what extent are we actually addressing the professional development knowledge of senior leaders who may not necessarily have a responsibility for SEND?”
Tes Magazine Education Insights is a new offering from Tes magazine that features a monthly in-depth report on the education sector alongside a webinar featuring leading figures from schools, education research and the commercial sector. You can download the latest report and webinar, on the topic of SEND, for free here
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